TSC strongly endorses the legislation offered by Senators Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) to reauthorize the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), including a goal to fund the program through tobacco taxes. Seniors fully understand there are two stages of life when the need for health care is critical to maintain a quality of life: young children and older adults. The inability of children to have access to needed health care because of the lack of health insurance coverage is a critical national priority to guarantee access by children to needed health care.

Credible studies document that there are more than 2 million children who are eligible for SCHIP coverage, but they are not enrolled. That means those 2 million children are not being seen by doctors, not receiving needed medical treatment, and not getting the medicines they need to protect and maintain their health.

The reauthorization of SCHIP needs to include provisions for expanded outreach and enrollment efforts; the enrollment and renewal process needs to be simplified; national pediatric quality standards should be used to measure the quality of care children receive through the program; and barriers that make it difficult for states to provide premium support through SCHIP for children in families with qualifying incomes that have access to employer-sponsored coverage should be eliminated. The key to the implementation of these programs is adequate funding authority, and the U.S. Senate should immediately reauthorize this program.

Each state should be granted the flexibility to determine the federal poverty level of the children who would be covered under its SCHIP program and improving the targeting of SCHIP funds allocation. TSC also believes that States should be given the option to enroll pregnant women who meet the program's income guidelines. Numerous studies have shown that health insurance coverage is essential for access to maternity care critical to the health of both mother and baby.

TSC urges the Congress to swiftly enact a full reauthorization of SCHIP to allow states to continue their commitment to providing health insurance coverage to every eligible child. The federal government has a duty to provide the federal resources needed to fully fund this program, and it needs to be done now.

Critics may ask why The Seniors Coalition, representing more than 4 million senior citizens, would weigh in on a health care issue for children. The answer is simple: Those children are our grandchildren and our future.

Letter to Reps. Dingell and Stark